Score!

‘And did you ever see anyone so tense as Jake and Tory Lovell?’ he was now whispering to Tristan. ‘Like blasted oaks. I suppose it’s sad when one’s little acorn goes astray. And look at Bussage! She’s a worse control freak than Rannaldini and she’s wearing her control frock. We could film Philip’s coronation in here, you know. Don’t you just love that Murillo? Must be worth five million. That’s why Rannaldini spends so much time in chapel gloating over it.’

Eddie Campbell-Black, who’d been ogling Lady Chisledon, suddenly spied Hermione, one of his former amours.

‘Hello, Henrietta,’ he bellowed.

Tabitha, who was even drunker than Eddie, swayed on Rannaldini’s arm in the chapel doorway.

‘You look sensational,’ he murmured.

She was wearing two triangles of white silk, high at the neck and falling nine inches above her knees. She held a small bunch of freesias, to match the flowers in her hair.

‘My dress is new, my knickers are borrowed from Mummy,’ she informed Rannaldini. ‘My toenails are painted blue, and you’re the something old.’ For a second she frowned at him. ‘I ought to be at Penscombe, with Daddy giving me away.’

‘The last thing I’m ever going to do is give you away,’ purred Rannaldini, his right knuckles gently kneading her left breast.

Then he winced at the first strains of ‘Here Comes the Bride’.

‘Who chose this junk?’

‘I did,’ said Tab, then, glancing round the chapel she gave a sob. ‘Oh, thank God, Taggie and Granddaddy are here.’

Striding up the aisle like a young Amazon, she paused to squeeze her stepmother’s hand.

‘What a vulgar dress,’ said Hermione, in a very audible whisper.

‘When’s her baby due?’ asked Little Cosmo loudly.

Lucy, who’d hardly had a second to change into a dark brown suit and black bowler, or to apply any of her make-up skills on herself, prayed that Tabitha wouldn’t be sick.

‘That’s Percy the Parson,’ hissed Meredith, as a red-faced cleric with straggly grey hair moved forward to welcome the bride. ‘He’s got such a plain wife, they’re known as One Man and His Dog.’

Lucy fought the giggles.

‘And the bridegroom is to die for,’ sighed Meredith, as Isa moved beside Tabitha. ‘Such a moody, vindictive little shit, pure Heathcliff, in fact, but bags I be Catherine Earnshaw.’

‘Should have had a haircut. Fellow’s hair’s longer than Tabitha’s,’ said Eddie loudly.

There was an awkward moment when Percy the Parson asked if anyone knew of any impediment or just cause why the couple shouldn’t be joined in matrimony and Little Cosmo called out, ‘I do,’ with a maniacal cackle and had his ears boxed by his mother.

‘To have and to hold from this day forward,’ intoned Isa.

‘Chap sounds like something out of Brookside,’ muttered a disapproving Eddie, taking a swig from his hip flask.

‘I, Tabitha Maud Lavinia, take thee, Isaac Jake,’ said Tab in the flat, clipped drawl that reminded almost everyone present of Rupert.

‘Love, cherish and obey,’ she went on, looking mockingly at Isa from under her mascaraed lashes.

‘Oh dear.’ Taggie blew her nose on a piece of loo paper. She certainly hadn’t obeyed Rupert today.

‘With my body I thee worship…’ As she lurched over to kiss Isa on the jawbone, Tab nearly fell over. ‘And with all my rather depleted worldly goods, I thee endow, although I am going to keep The Engineer,’ she added, as an afterthought.

‘Tabitha!’ hissed an appalled Helen. What would the Lovells think?

Fortunately everyone was distracted by the ringing of Little Cosmo’s mobile. Tab got the giggles.

Even more fortunately, Percy dispensed with a sermon. He’d been kept waiting quite long enough, and when he’d asked Helen and Rannaldini for touching memories of the bride, Helen couldn’t think of any and Rannaldini’s had been quite unrepeatable.

As everyone knelt to pray it could be seen that the bridegroom was wearing sapphire cufflinks as big and blue as his wife’s eyes.

Followed by a smirking Rannaldini, a tight-lipped Helen, an ashen Jake and Tory, Tab and Isa went off to sign the register.

Tristan turned to Lucy. ‘That is best make-up repair job I ever see. You wouldn’t know she’d shedded a tear.’ No Frenchwoman would be seen dead in that black bowler, decided Tristan, but Lucy had a nice face, not pretty, but kind and generous. With her dark curls, freckles, bright eyes and athletic body, she reminded him of a heroine in one of those Mallory Towers books his girl cousins were always devouring in the holidays.

Lucy, who’d spent her life studying faces, thought Tristan’s was marvellous. She longed to paint out the dark shadows, bring forward the deep-set eyes and add a bit of tawny blusher to the sallow cheeks. There was also deceptive strength in the jaw. And when he smiled he had wonderful even white teeth.

She jumped as Meredith, who was now standing on the pew to have a better view, whispered that the Lovells looked as though they were signing a death warrant. ‘Probably will be if Rupert rolls up.’

‘Who’s that beautiful woman in the crimson suit?’ asked Tristan.